Christmas Cheer
by Claidi Winter
Summary: This is a series of short unrelated Christmas stories. Some may resemble stories you’ve heard, some may not. Christmas is my ultimate favorite time of year and I want to share some of my Christmas Cheer with all of you.


All story, character, and character titles but the names "Darien Shields", "Serena", "June Haven", and "Audrey King" are mine. I don't own Sailor Moon.  
  
Enjoy!  
  
*~*~***~*~*  
  
Home for Christmas - Part 1  
  
Author: Claidi Winter  
  
Rated: PG-13 (for insinuations and little adult language)  
  
*~*~***~*~*  
  
Clanking bottles, shouts, music and laughter filtered through the small camp for the first since any of the men, and tonight women, occupying it had been there.  
  
Captain Darien Shields was reluctant at best to join in their festivities, he was never one to socialize with his men, even on good occasions. It was awful hard to send someone off to die if you were friendly with them. No, Christmas Eve, he had resolved, was going to be about him, a bottle of gin, and long hours pining for the beautiful golden haired woman who smiled down at him every night from the bottom of the top bunk. However those intentions were shot to hell the instant a few of his privates, already a bit buzzed, made it their own personal mission statement to get their brooding Captain to at least crack a smile that night.  
  
Darien rolled his eyes when a beer bottle was suspended in front of his eyes just as he moved to make his exit from supervising the party. He grabbed the bottle gruffly and staggered around to face two of his fool privates, Gregory Ranger and Charles McHugh, with their arms around the other's shoulders and grinning like the devil.  
  
Darien raised a brow at them and clasping the bottle between his middle finger and thumb he motioned back and forth between the two, "You two wanna be left alone? I'm not one to stand in the way of true love."  
  
The men's, or rather boy's, grins dropped as did their arms and Darien chuckled, raising his hands defensively in the air. "No, no, by all means continue. It's Christmas, and I know it can get awful lonely out here."  
  
At their folded arms and unamused looks, he chuckled and turned to leave. However the men were not giving up that easily. Seeing they were about to lose him, Charles quickly left his stupider and chased after him. "C'mon Cap'in, just have one drink with us."  
  
Darien sighed, and eyed them unhappily. Finally rubbing those same eyes, he nodded. It was Christmas after all. The boys cheered and he groaned.  
  
He had a feeling he was going to regret this...  
  
*~*~One Hour Later~*~*  
  
"So I looked um straight in the eye... I looked um square in the eye and said to that Nazi sonofabitch, I said to um,"  
  
""Would you hold my gun while I shit all of this bull?""  
  
Uproarious laughter escaped the lips of them men at his quip and Darien smiled smugly, nursing his beer as the young private whipped around to scowl at him. "Oh please, Ranger, don't look at me like that. You know you wouldn't know a Nazi if he bit ya in the ass."  
  
"See, here we try and cheer you up, having our Christmas intentions of goodwill and all that shit, and you spit it right back in our faces. I'd be awful glad if I people who cared so much to set me straight when I was being a... a..."  
  
Darien set down his drink, and looped his thumbs through his belt hooks as he got up to face the now stuttering nineteen-year old. "I was being a *what*, Private?"  
  
McHugh searched his mind frantically for an answer. He continued stuttering, obviously intimidated by the six foot four inch Captain after insinuating there was something about him needing to be 'set straight'. Not only was Charles his subordinate, he was six years Darien's junior. "Well, a sourpuss is what you were bein', sir!"  
  
From this, of course, another bout of laugher erupted from the surrounding men and Darien relaxed his form. Leaning on his left leg he wiped his nose, trying to stifle his own laughter.  
  
"Hey, Shields," a fellow Captain, Samuel Nigh, called to him, just as he was about to reply. Darien rolled his eyes and waved him over. Grinning back Sam ran to him, and pointing over his shoulder, he directed his gaze at something.  
  
Darien raised black brows at him and looked in the direction he pointed towards. "Whaddya want, Sam?"  
  
"You see that USO girl over there?" He asked, wiggling his brows mischievously.  
  
Darien eyed him before turning back to where he was supposed to be looking. "What, the brunette?" he asked cagily, shifting uncomfortably as the girl crossed her legs on the edge of the makeshift stage and winked at him, stirring her drink.  
  
"Yeah!" His friend replied enthusiastically. "She says to tell you that you have, 'The nicest blue eyes she ever saw.' You know what it means when a girl - Hey Dare, where ya going?!"  
  
Sam cocked his head incredulously at Darien's retreating form. He sniffled a bit, turning to the nearest private. "Where the hell is he goin'?"  
  
"Aw, sucks Captain! Ya had to scare 'em away! We were just getting' him to loosen up too," Ranger whined, slamming his drink down on the table.  
  
"That didn't answer my question, Private. What the hell is wrong with him?"  
  
Though that was not the Captain's first question, Gregory knew better than to contradict a superior, so he snapped to attention and answered the latter inquiry. "Sir. With all due respect, Sir, Captain Shields has a wife, Sir."  
  
Chad furrowed his brows. "No shit?"  
  
"Sir, no shit, Sir. He just got married before he was reattached, to a little small town girl from Illinois. Prettier than June Haver* Sir, I swear. If I had a sweet young thing like that waiting for me at home I'd a walked away too... Sir."  
  
"June Haver, huh?"  
  
"Yes, Sir. June Haver, any of 'um. I only seen her picture 'cause he dropped it once. I tell ya, Audrey King* ain't nothing next to her."  
  
Sam raised a brow and put his hands on his hips. "Well is she Shields's wife or yours, Private? You wouldn't know from talking to ya!"  
  
Gregory laughed but had the grace to blush before shrugging and taking another swig of his beer.  
  
"Oh well. It's Christmas Eve. He can sulk all he wants. She might not be no Mrs. Shields, but that little red head over there is calling my name like mama called for dinner. Carry on, Private."  
  
*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*  
  
Darien groaned as he flopped on his cot, tearing the picture from the wire net above him. He squinted, the alcohol having taken its toll on his vision, at the black and white photo of his wife. Tracing the lines of her happy smile and the curves of her body, he gave a boyish grin, remembering how she looked under that polka dotted dress.  
  
He had tried to put on a good face for his men, but how could he even look at another woman when he only saw her? He hadn't gotten to take her but once, on their wedding night, before he had to leave. Even then, he had wanted to wait, but she clung to him, and her urgency to be near him told him the fear she refused to vocalize.  
  
Sure they were married, but he had envisioned seducing her, relaxing her, coaxing her into his embrace. Not the passionate but sad and hasty movements of lovers who knew they had mere hours before they would have to part.  
  
He had met her after being wounded in his first rotation in the war. She was the first thing he saw as he woke from the anesthetic, the first girl from home. She had giggled at his drunkenly executed pick up line as she adjusted his pillows and checked his IV. She came back later that evening, when he was far more conscious, and he asked her to dinner officially. She had consented, but only because she was, "repaying (his) service for the country".  
  
Over the next year he had been assigned to a training post, and had assigned himself to winning a certain nurse's heart. By May 1943 he had finally worked up enough courage, and at one of his parent's balls, publicly asked for her hand. It would be an understatement to say that his parents, one of the oldest and most aristocratic families of Virginia, disapproved of him marrying someone of such low standing, Serena being a small town girl from Illinois. But for the first time in his life, Darien quite frankly did not give a damn about what his parents thought.  
  
Months before the wedding, he received a letter, the look of which he knew too well. Serena, his soon to be wife, had pleaded with him to not open it, to just ignore it. But they both knew he could never do such a thing. Darien saw serving as his privilege and his honor, and when he heard the plans the government had for June of '44*, he was that much more dedicated.  
  
Still, honor and duty though he may have had, he would be damned if he didn't miss his wife, and wanted nothing more than to be near to her this Christmas.  
  
The fighting chilled him, of course. Hell, the things he had seen would haunt him until the day he rested with the Father. But he would be able to live with dying, as paradoxical as that sounded, if it wasn't for the fact that he would never see Serena's bright smile again, or be there for her when she would need him. That's what terrified him. That's what kept him from remembering the sad but true mission statement of a soldier: Not to die for your country, but to make the other man die for his.  
  
He shifted, placing the picture gently back above him, but frowned as he did so. Something stiff rubbed oddly against his back. Reaching underneath, Darien grabbed the thing beneath, and his heart skipped as he pulled it out and recognized it as a letter. He must have missed it as he failed to look over his bed before lying down. Could it be from Serena?  
  
Inwardly shaking, he read it silently.  
  
---------------------------------  
  
Darien,  
  
When you were four you wanted a fire truck, I recall. A real fire truck.  
  
I got you a smaller one, not because I didn't want to give you the real thing, I did, but I couldn't. So I got you the closest thing I could.  
  
I didn't get a list from you this year, but I will do my best to give you the closest I can to what you truly want.  
  
Put this letter underneath your pillow, and sleep well.  
  
Merry Christmas, S. N.  
  
---------------------------------  
  
"What the hell?" Darien mused allowed.  
  
How the hell did they know about the fire--?  
  
Suddenly there was louder shouting heard from the adjunct room, and he winced as a crash was heard, with yelling and familiar laughter of a certain Captain to follow. He rolled his eyes as he looked back at the letter.  
  
S.N.: Samuel Nigh.  
  
"Very funny, Sam!" He called into the next to room, but his voice was lost to the overpowering sounds of boisterous soldiers and loud Christmas music.  
  
Shaking his head he folded the letter and stuffed it under his cot. So the bastard had a sense of humor after all.  
  
After a yawn and one last swig out of his bottle, he resigned himself to sleep. At best it would keep him from anymore feelings of remorse. Lying down fully, he rested his hands behind his head. Slowly his eyes drooped, more and more, until finally they closed, Serena's smile the last thing they saw before he drifted slowly to sleep.  
  
However moments after he shut his eyes, he was rudely awakened by a scream and shifting of weight on his bed as something hastily removed itself. He shot up and tried to swing his feet over the side of the cot, but they only met with more bedding. He *knew* his bed was NOT that big. Slowly, as he felt the silky smooth covers beneath him, did he realize that this was not his cot...  
  
However he lost his train of thought, snapping to the defense when a light fled to the room as a few clicks sounded behind him. Holding up his hands to shade his re-adjusting eyes, he spun sharply around, drawing his gun quicker than the blink of an eye, to face...  
  
"Serena?!" he cried in disbelief, taking in the sight of her form, closely hugged by a silk negligee. He blushed slightly then, as he realized all he was pointing at her were his bare hands, pantomiming a trigger ready hold on a gun.  
  
The woman blinked and turned the lamp up higher, crawling towards him and squinting as she did so. "Darien... Is that you?"  
  
He laughed nervously and ran a hand through his hair. "I guess so..."  
  
As the light fully illuminated his face she cried out, and shoving the lamp back onto the bed stand, she flung herself at him. "Oh Darien! Darien, Darien! Am I dreaming?" She half laughed, half cried into his neck.  
  
He swallowed and blinked, and wrapped his arms around her small, warm form. She seemed as real as the war he was fighting in. But wait, was he not, still?  
  
"Serena, I- Where are we?"  
  
She sniffled and rose slightly to look around, her arms still tightly locked around his neck. "Our bedroom... Oh Darien, stop playing! I'm not dreaming! I know I'm not! I was just getting into bed when I realized someone else was in it! I never went to sleep! Oh Darien, I'm so glad you're home! Golly, you sure have me a start! You sly thing, you... Whenever did you get back? They just sent you home?"  
  
Darien licked his lips and looked around incredulously. It was his parents' old bedroom, now theirs, just as she had said. He pinched himself and blinked when it actually hurt, the sting still pulsing through his skin. Pulling away from Serena slightly, he looked down, her sparkling eyes still waiting for an answer. Well, there was only one way he could answer his own questions.  
  
In one swift motion, he gently but firmly took hold of her arms and kissed her with the all frustrations and passions built up over the last six months.  
  
Pulling away and gasping for breath, he smiled at her shocked yet satisfied features. Grinning he pulled her close to him once more, and leaned his head in her hair, sighing as she snuggled further into his embrace. "Baby, I don't know when, I don't know how, I guess it was just one big blur, but do know one thing's right certain. I'm home, Darlin'. I'm home."  
  
*~*~*~*~*~*~*  
  
Darien smiled as lights filtered through the dark blue curtains and onto him, warming his form. He snuggled deeper under the covers, enjoying the end of what had been his best sleep in months.  
  
His senses dimly became aware of something warm and soft moving up his back and around his waist, but he failed to open his eyes until another identical object slid over his other shoulder and onto his chest. Glancing groggily down to the source, he shot up when his eyes met with a small, red- nailed hand.  
  
Sweet feminine giggles reached his ears from behind and he turned around, as slowly as possible, only to face the most beautiful pair of blue eyes in the world.  
  
"Merry Christmas Morning, Sleepy Head." She purred.  
  
Darien jumped slightly at the sound of her voice, but relaxed when he remembered the previous night's events. Even so, as if to reassure himself, he rubbed his eyes and leaned backward to get a better look at her. It was indeed his Serena, obviously naked under the soft silk robe she wore. Her golden locks sprawled over and across her shoulders, and her baby blue eyes sparkled lovingly at him. Still, it bugged him. How in God's Good Graces was he home?  
  
"You slept forever," she said quietly, blushing as she traced designs in the sheets. "It's almost eight."  
  
Darien smiled, no, grinned. Who was he to question how he got there? He was there, with her, and he intended to take full advantage of it.  
  
Still grinning, Darien crawled slowly towards her over the expanse of the very large bed, like a large cat stalking his prey.  
  
"Darien!" She squealed as he pounced on her, wriggling against him as he nuzzled her neck, but stilled when he then claimed her mouth.  
  
Her eyes were cloudy when he finally pulled away and a lazy smile played across her lips as she wrapped her arms around his neck.  
  
He smiled too and bent down again, but this time only lightly brushing her swollen lips with his own. "I missed you so much," he whispered huskily into them.  
  
She furrowed her brows and giggled, "Well, I'm right here now, Darling," she cooed.  
  
"Hmm, yes you are..." He closed his eyes and inhaled her sent. She smelled like... cinnamon?  
  
"Ohhh, I hope I smell what I think I do..." he groaned lifting himself from on top of her and making his way towards the door.  
  
She laughed and grabbed his hand before he could go any further. "I believe it is, but you can't have any if you go out like that!"  
  
He raised a brow at her and had the decency to blush as he looked down at his current unclothed state.  
  
"Right," he chuckled. "Is anyone down there?" He asked as he slipped on the red silk robe she handed him, along with a pair of pajama pants.  
  
She nodded, pulling her discarded nightgown over her head as well. "Just May and Henry watching the food while I get you."  
  
Darien swallowed and grinned at the mention of the two servants he had been practically raised by. How long had it been since he had seen them? Longer than the last time he saw his beloved Serena.  
  
"Well, you got me." He chuckled. Now appropriately dressed, he marched back across the room and she shrieked as he picked her up princess style. "And now I have you." With that he carried her out the door.  
  
*~*~*~*~*~*  
  
TBC, tell me what you think! 


End file.
